Instead of wiping wet hands with a towel, a handkerchief, or the like after they are washed, conventional hand dryer apparatuses have been used that include a hand drying chamber into which wet hands are inserted, jet a high speed stream of air to the hands in the drying chamber to blow off water on the hands, and thereby dry the hands.
Patent Literature 1 discloses a hand dryer apparatus that includes a casing including an air blow port and a hand insertion portion; an air blower unit including an air blower motor that supplies drying air through the air blow port into the hand insertion portion; a drain conductive plate placed in the casing near the hand insertion portion; and a detection unit that continuously detects changes over time in capacitance of the drain conductive plate. The hand dryer apparatus stops driving of the air blower motor when the capacitance of the drain conductive plate exceeds a predetermined threshold value.